About The Lazy Geek

My name is Connor, and I am THE Lazy Geek, and have been since I was burst-ed from the chest of my mother, just like in Alien. I spend my day gaming and sometimes blogging about the things I am passionate about and enjoy very much. In between that, I find time to design websites, play games, partake in a number of other hobbies.

Guild Wars is over six years old. Wow! Has it been that long? Has it really been that long since I first answered Adelbern’s call? I joined 2 months after the game was released, but early enough to remember refund points that were needed when changing stats. After joining/leaving/being kicked from a few guilds, I joined DRGN, a guild that included my sons and my wife, and I dragged along a co-worker as well. I made online friends and watched as they graduated high school, attended college, and graduated from there as well. I have been part of the same guild that lost an officer to a tragic ‘real-world’ accident in 2008. I was involved with the first “Pink Day in LA” in support of breast cancer awareness, where DRGN gave out red and silver dyes (trying to approximate pink dye) and we filled 3 international districts.

Pink Day was started by a couple of officers in our guild, one of whom writes for TalkTyria; my son, Connor, The Lazy Geek. Yep, I’m proud to say we are related. This idea, where, if only for a brief moment, gaming stops and as a community we focus on something larger than the virtual world where we play, is pretty unique in the gaming world. Pink Day has grown to something utterly amazing, especially when the never ending ball of energy, M A L I B U Barbie and GW-EN, together with TalkTyria and many other guilds and alliances, raised over $10,000 in 2010. And, for the first time, ANET did something unheard of in support of a community event; they produced a Pink Dye for Breast Cancer awareness. It was the entire Guild Wars community that made last year’s Pink Day such a success; I am very honored to be a small part of this active and interesting community!

PAX 2011

PAX Prime 2011 has come and gone. What a whirlwind of activity; unplanned stays at a gracious host’s home, an ANET Party held at their HQ, the playable GW2 demo, a sheep named ‘Sheila,’ and many interesting panels. So, what was learned about GW2?
What follows will be a, “conversation,” between father (Guido) and son The Lazy Geek. Continue reading →

How long have we been together, Guild Wars? 73 months now? Maybe more, if we count the beta weeks (and we are!). It started out great. You took me to a wonderful and beautiful world rich with lore and secrets all while keeping me on my toes around every turn. You kept challenging me, just as I had thought I understood it all, and even after mastering, I kept going on, playing in unnatural and unique ways. Eventually, the shine you once held began to wear and fade, and at times it felt like you were taking advantage of my rose-tinted spectacles. I hate to bring it up again (no I don’t), but do you remember Aura of the Lich? Ah, the fun times I had using that skill on my necromancer who wielded it with an axe and laughed watching waves fell upon his shield only to die seconds later. This was the first major argument we had, Guild Wars, and it sure wasn’t the last.

If you are reading this, then the scientists working with the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have finally developed the ability to send small packets of information via a telepathic link back in time to any person. Sadly, no DeLorian is involved. It’s all very complicated, but you’ll have to take my word for it, but, I digress, for the information I bear concerns the future of Guild Wars 2!

The year is 2016 and Guild Wars 2 is still going strong for 4 years (Guild Wars 2 is released on April 26 2012) with over 7 million active accounts which is slowly increasing every day. After 3 years, Guild Wars: Utopia was finally released as a GW2 expansion. It allows players with linked Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 accounts to travel through both games as a Chronomancer and it adds a lot of unique “what-if” campaign quests (What if the mursaat were actually pretty cool dudes?). However, over the 4 years, the game has become…different. Different in that it’s now a carbon-copy of Guild Wars. And what I mean by that, is that the Guild Wars 2 has become a mindless routine rather than a game boasting grand explorations and adventures with your comrades. Continue reading →

I don’t want to waste your time, as I’m sure you’re busy working on making Guild Wars a better game before the release of Guild Wars 2. But as a veteran to Guild Wars, I feel I need to speak my mind, and hopefully you’ll take solace in the opinions of an older player who has been with you since the days of Beta and beyond. I feel as I should also give you the short version first, which I’m sure will entice you to read my reasons for this letter. So, here it goes.

Since Prophecies was released almost 6 years ago, skill builds have been a huge aspect of the Guild Wars experience. You’re only allowed 8 skills at a time and one of the skill slots has the option to hold an elite skill. There are over 1000 non-elite skills and almost 300 elite skills spread out over 10 professions. Basically, what I’m getting at, is that players should have no problems creating builds that work for them and their party, no matter how silly or trivial they may seem.

But these days, after balances and nerfs and buffs, there are only so many builds a player will run depending on the mission, PvE or PvP. This is called, The Meta. So, where have all the silly and fun builds run off to and why have people stopped running them? Because Meta builds are more efficient? Because, after all the nerfs to non-meta elite skills, it’s not worth the trouble? Because copy-paste builds from PvX are so much easier to use? If you answered “Yes!” to any of the three previous questions, then YOU ARE WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE GAME. Let’s explore why. Continue reading →